Sexton proves that old school isn’t old hat

Paul O’Connell was undoubtedly a significant contributor to the Lions victory in the first Test in Brisbane, but perhaps the more crucial factor was the Munster-like weather that afflicted the so-called Sunshine State the day before the match.

A wet Friday made for a slippery pitch and if you want to ask anybody just how slippery, you might need Kurtley Beale’s mobile number. The penalty goal to win the match looked perfect right up until the beginning. His left foot hit the turf, his backside followed soon after, and from 46 metres out, you’re never going to reach the posts when your tags are the first things that make contact with the pill.

Alas for the Aussies and happy days for the tourists.

Actually, there was a lot of ‘alas-ing’ for the Wallabies, starting in the 43rd second of the match when Jonathan Davies’ knee hit Christian Leali’ifano’s head and ended the contribution of the debutant and proposed first choice goal kicker. The busiest boys on duty were the stretcher-bearers who will need the midweek game off to be fit again for the Melbourne test. By the 10-minute mark of the second half they’d also carted off Berrick Barnes and Pat McCabe and must have been thrilled when Adam Ashley-Cooper decided he could depart unassisted with his injured shoulder late in the game.

To go close to a Lions side when you have a flanker playing in the centres for much of the second half is a pretty credible performance but where Warren Gatland would have been looking for more credibility was with referee Chris Pollock. In the forgive-all atmosphere of victory, Pollock didn’t come through the tourists’ post-match press conference unscathed, but had the scoreboards been reversed, he too may have been requiring the services of the stretcher-bearers, such would have been the pummelling he’d have received.

He was baffling at the breakdown and appeared to fall into that dangerous trap that can affect adjudicators from time to time — refereeing only one side. There were Wallaby supporters occasionally bowing their heads out of embarrassment and avoiding eye contact with Lions fans. Mind you, that didn’t stop the fans in gold tearing their hair out when the penalties, rightly or wrongly awarded, failed to find their way between the uprights.

So all in all, there was good luck and bad luck for both sides, and the end result was the Lions were two points luckier.

Lucky for them indeed that Jonny Sexton was wearing red. If a fly-half dominates his opponent in a Test match, it’s rare he doesn’t end up on the winning side, and as a number 10, Sexton clearly out-pointed the Wallabies’ James O’Connor. Brilliant footballer that he is, O’Connor’s a part-time fly-half with very little international experience at steering his team around the park. Sexton looks like he does it in his sleep and he was wide awake on Saturday. While his defensive lapse prior to Israel Folau’s second try will embarrass him for some time — never have I seen an attempted tackler miss the intended target by quite as much as Jonny missed Israel — his overall game was outstanding. He proved that old school is not, as is often mistakenly interpreted by many modern coaches, old hat.

I don’t know about northern hemisphere rugby, but in this part of the planet, it’s been decades since any fly-half in general play has kicked “up and unders” from the halfway line. Sexton did it several times and each time effectively. It wasn’t kicking possession away, it was putting pressure on the opposition.

When Sexton was in Australia with Ireland a couple of years ago, he wasn’t the complete article. Excluding his defensive episode with Folau — he won’t be the only one stood up by Big Izzy — he does now look the finished product.

The Lions will be in a much happier place over the next five days and not just because they now only need to win one from two. They escaped the match relatively unbattered although there are a few minor concerns including a hand problem for O’Connell, but it seems none of their top liners are in danger of being unavailable for Melbourne, while Tommy Bowe and Manu Tuilagi should be fit for consideration.

Exactly who will be fit to take a spot in the Wallabies backline is anybody’s guess. Will the brilliant but occasionally erratic Quade Cooper come back into the equation and does Folau’s performance tempt Deans to shift him to full-back and presumably more of the action?

A bright note for the Wallabies was the performance of their set piece. Scrums and line-outs are generally where Australia are seen as vulnerable. It would be annoying for us all down here if our pack does the business in the tight and we’ve got no backs fit enough to take advantage.

* Former Wallaby captain Andy Slack is a writer for the Sunday Mail in Brisbane. Don’t miss him next Monday.